ginger tinted bright
by Melitza
Summary: In which Shuuhei Hisagi realizes he never had Kuichiki Rukia to begin with. Lime, implied pairings.


Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach. But if I did, I would still disclaim it and write tawdry fanfiction and post it all over the net for feedback. So you'll always wonder, eh?

**Warning:** Complete, utter crack-pairing. The absolute only basis I have for this one is the fact they look hawt together, and um, like one exchange that I know of… in a _filler arc_, ohh, the horror.

**Title:** Ginger Tinted Bright

**Rating**: T, for light sexual references and implied (maybe? ) yuri

**Character Focus: **Shuhei Hisagi x Kuchiki Rukia, light Orihime x Rukia, implied Ichigo x Rukia

**Setting: **Bount Arc, episodes 84 & 85

**Description: ** In which Shuhei Hisago realizes he never had Kuichiki Rukia to begin with

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When Yamamoto-san ordered for him to go to the living world and assist in the problems the current shinigami stationed there were having, never for a moment did it cross his mind that he might encounter _her_.

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The rotation of her hips was a graceful, slow kind of agony. She was as careful and tentative as he was firm and confident, and together, their sweat and hisses and moans mixed to make something new and exciting and beautiful.

"Kuchiki," the syllables shuddered from deep in his chest as he ground into her again and again.

He never noticed the way she flinched or the momentary flash of hurt in her eyes when he called out her surname instead of her name. It was many, many years later before he even realized his transgressions.

He liked the way he reflected in her eyes; likened himself to tall, dark and handsome. Older, secure, and mysterious; he liked the way she watched him with such solemn and open adoration. It was many years later before he realized that when she looked at him, the only thing reflecting in her violet eyes was a dark sadness and a shallow likeness of a man who would never (_could never_) be hers.

Dark; he was right in the 'dark' and little else. Dark like anxiety, not mystery; dark like desolation, not beauty. Dark like his hair; dark like _Kaien's_ hair, he realized, and wondered later if it was irony or simple coincidence.

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"Kuchiki," he had called, reaching out to take hold of her arm as she tried to swiftly pass him in the Academy hall. He had heard of the terrible accident that had occurred within her division, and seeing her pass with such sallow eyes, he thought only to offer the kinds of words friends offered in times of hardship. They were that, weren't they?

(_If only he had known then what he knew now – if only he had known the guilt she dragged with her. Had known that her beloved mentor, her lieutenant, had been slain by her own forced hand… He liked to believe he might have done things differently – done things right._)

"Kuchiki –" he started again, now that he had hold of her, but she interrupted him before the right words could come.

"After everything – you would think –" she started, halted; paused. Then shook her head quickly, apparently dismissing both the thought and him at once. "You would think you could say my name," she finished, and there was almost an audible snap to be heard, like the closing of a book. The coldness emanating like an aura was clumsy and foreign on her, but somehow he knew that even though she was uncertain in it now, she meant to grow into it. To become it.

Hisagi pulled back, stunned, off balanced and uncertain in the face of the brittle aloofness that was not her. He paused, waiting for some sort of explanation, and she paused – perhaps waiting for the same –

He had been her sometime lover, but he prided himself in being dark and mysterious. He would not be the sappy friend who trailed her and begged for her attention – salivated over sharing feelings and hurts and tears. And she… she seemed beyond seeking him for such anyway.

Their prides were an expanse of brittle silence that stretched for an eternity between them. He would not ask, and somehow, he knew even in that moment that she would never tell. Those words would be the only explanation he would get.

She walked away.

Hisagi did not follow.

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"Kuchiki," the syllables shuddered from deep in his chest as he ground into her again and again. Not Rukia. Not the name that was hers. He had chosen the name with pedigree; the one that was a chafing collar that never fitted quite right on her. "Kuchiki," he had hissed, because the syllables had just come a little earlier, rolled off his tongue a little nicer – kept that distance between them a little cooler.

"Kuchiki," he had moaned, and the word slipped from his lips as an icy dagger into her heart. No, Hisagi was not aware of his transgressions, but when he later allowed himself to the whimsy of retracing memory, he realized there were many.

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The ryoka girl had known her for only a matter of months and had no _real_ ties with her to speak of. She was barely an acquaintance, really, and yet she had risked her life to come to Soul Society and rescue Rukia from execution, while Hisagi – her comrade, her teacher, her sometime lover – had actually fought to keep her murder on schedule.

This girl – this Orihime – owed her nothing, and yet here she was, risking everything once again for her. And once again, Hisagi was left to face his own shame.

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"Kill me," Rukia begged.

(_No, Rukia did not beg; never had, and he imagined, never would. Even as a scared little orphan-cadet at the academy, she had walked with her head held high. It was hers to order and demand, never to beg, and had he not known of Byakuya's late wife and her likeness to Rukia, he might have wondered if she had been adopted specifically because her attitude had been crafted with the Kuichiki clan in mind.)_

"Kill me!" she shouted again, and then the Bount's doll burrowed deeper.

She threw back her head and screamed, and his heart twisted and turned and broke even as it swelled with pride. The dichotomy threatened his face with both tears and a sad smile. He allowed neither, instead rumbling his approval with a solemn nod.

"Well said, Kuichiki," (_Kuichiki – always Kuichiki, never Rukia, and most especially not now; it was too late to pretend to be so close_) he soothed, and drew his zanpakuto, and wondered if it would forever be stained with her blood, the way she had confided hers was with Kaien's.

The thought did not bother him as much as it should have. Instead, he selfishly thought, perhaps he would only be happy to carry some small part of her with him from hereon. She had taken back what she had shared with him, cooled to him and made believe that nothing that was had ever been. It was clear by now that her life was not to intertwine with his; but this, her death – it was an honor, it was a sign of her trust in him, and he would not fail her in this one last thing.

He shifted his grip on his zanpakuto and imagined it stained with noble Kuichiki-blood, but did not hesitate in lunging for the kill. Did not hesitate, in fact, until the ryoka girl with ginger hair and expressive brown eyes like windows to her soul moved between…

… Risked it all… and won. Even as she protectively embraced Rukia to her chest and wept for joy, Hisagi felt a rush of shame at how close he had been to giving her up. To betraying her. To _killing her_. _Again._

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When she looked at the ryoka, there were no protocols and ranks between them. No petty barriers. And though the girl softly called her, "Kuchiki-san," Rukia did not flinch, and the warmth of her aura did not shift to ice.

Seeing the way she looked at her (remembering the way she looked at _him_), it struck him that it was no longer black reflected in her violet eyes, but warm, complimentary tints of ginger. And somehow… it fit. And he thought that perhaps the black (_his black, Kaien's black, Kuichiki's black_) had never belonged there at all.

When she looked at the ryoka, she smiled and her sad, sad violet eyes lit up and for the first time in years she was _alive_ and she was _happy_, and suddenly Hisagi realized that he had not lost Kuchiki Rukia. He had not 'given her up.'

He had never had her to begin with.

And now, he was only a faint, dark shadow on the outskirts of the ginger tinted bright.

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_Fin_

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_Author's Note: It skips a bit, I know, but it felt the best this way; ask if anything doesn't make sense. This one has been on the back burner for… forever… but I thought I should finish it and put it up, in case there are any other silly little crack-pairing closet-shippers out there._


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